Harkis makes a vegetable protein from broad beans. This article from Sitra.fi details the product in English. The Japanese product page is here. These products are available at Natural Lawson stores and also online at Rakuten and have been seen at some regular supermarkets such as Daiei and Life.

The Japanese product page recommends stir-frying the product or adding it to a salad. All three products are gluten-free.

There are also recipe ideas using this product on the Harkis Instagram page, although they are not all vegan.

Marukome currently makes thirteen types of soy minced meat, some dry, one refrigerated, and some that come ready-to-use in a retort pouch, seasoned and unseasoned, in various shapes from crumbles to blocks. They can be viewed here. The name of the product series is Soy Meat, 大豆のお肉/daizu no o-niku. The product page also shows other, unrelated non-vegan items. The taco rice/タコライス and gapao rice/ガパオライス are not vegan. One of the types is pictured below:

This is made by the vegan company Terra Foods, which operates a very popular vegan hamburger and hot dog food truck in Tokyo. This product is not a meat substitute itself, but rather a seasoning powder that can be used to make things taste like beef. It can be ordered online at the above link.

From autotranslate: “Can be used as a stock for stir-fry, fried rice, soup, pasta, stew and curry! Soy meat becomes even more delicious!”

From autotranslate: “The first Japanese vegan (non-animal) sausage with a crisp texture and a sausage-like taste. Zero cholesterol! Low calorie! About 1/5 calorie of ordinary sausage. Gluten-free! No white sugar, coloring or preservatives are used! Simply baking on an iron plate, cooking is easy and can be used for a variety of dishes!”

Even though these have soy cream in the middle, they are not vegan. Dried egg whites are used as a binder. These may be a knockoff of the Otsuka Zero Meat product, which also uses egg whites.

Otsuka’s Zero Meat products are not vegan as they contain powdered egg white. The “cheese” version of the burgers does use plant-based cheese instead of dairy, but still has powdered egg white/粉末卵白, funmatsu ranpaku. Photos from Zero Meat’s website.

• Otsuka Zero Meat Demiglace Hamburger/ゼロミート デミグラスタイプ・ハンバーグ

• Otsuka Zero Meat Demiglace Cheeseburger/ゼロミート チーズイン・デミグラスタイプ・ハンバーグ

•Otsuka Zero Meat Sausages also contain egg white.

SEITAN

Premade seitan is not well known and can be difficult to find in Japan. It’s been reported to be sold in jars at National Azabu (Tokyo) and Nissen supermarkets. However, you can usually find bags of gluten in the cake baking section of the supermarket. This product is the same as vital wheat gluten flour, so it’s possible to make seitan yourself at home using it. Check our wheat gluten section to see some of the brands available.

TEMPEH

Tempeh can be found at some stores like the supermarket chain Kodawariya.

ONLINE SHOPPING

Natural House – This is a chain of small supermarkets that also has an online store. It sells quite a few vegan products like seitan and mock meat.

The Nature Shop Karuna – The store is located in Nagoya and has a large range of food products, including ice cream, pudding, soda, scones, rusk, many types of dried soy meat, vegan “chicken” chunks from the Vegetarian Butcher in small quantities, “vegan loaf” soy meat, instant noodles, and cup ramen (plus a few personal care and cleaning products). Vegan products are marked with a “V.”

San-iku Vegetus– They have various food products like soy/gluten meat, vegetarian curries, cookies, as well as a few personal care products.

Tokyo Vegan/Vegetarian Friends Club– Facebook group’s guide to ordering plant-based meat from abroad from veganessentials.com (US) or www.veggie-shop24.com (EU), including Gardein, Tofurky, Beyond Meat and many other brands. (English) According VeganEssentials.com’s customer service, they recommend DHL priority shipping for cold items, which should generally arrive in 3-4 days. They try to ship only on Monday or Tuesday so the items can arrive in the same week and not sit over weekends. They can provide shipping estimates when emailed a shipping address and list of desired purchase items. They do also ship to Japan via priority mail, but it can take up to 7-14 days, which might not be good for cold food items if they are warm in transit.